Castles Made of Sand by Andre Gerolymatos

Author:Andre Gerolymatos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

SEVENTEEN

America’s Eyes in the Middle East:

The CIA and Israeli Intelligence

“I know of no country that has given such public recognition to a foreign intelligence officer.”

—William Hood (on Israeli honors for James Jesus Angleton)1

Despite differences of opinion over policy with parts of the Middle East, Britain remained a close ally of the United States. However, Israel’s secret service, Mossad, became the primary source of intelligence for the CIA on the region, as well as on Eastern bloc countries and the Soviet Union. In his history of the CIA, Tim Weiner comments: “The channel [Mossad] produced much of the agency’s intelligence on the Arab world, but at a cost—a growing American dependence on Israel to explain events in the Middle East. The Israeli perspective colored American perceptions for decades to come.”2

The architect of this relationship was James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s head of counterintelligence and the one-man liaison with Israel.3 Angleton’s relationship with Israel cannot be defined in stark black-and-white terms—pro-Israel and pro-Zionist, certainly not in the absolute conviction of someone like Orde Wingate, but in subtle shades of gray. Angleton was committed to the Israeli-American alliance but suspicious of Jewish organizations in the United States as well as of Jewish individuals both in and out of the CIA. He backed a CIA operation to buy a Washington garbage company that collected trash from the Israeli embassy and the office of B’nai B’irth, and took it to the agency for sorting and analysis.4

Yet for over three decades, Angleton was the closest ally of Israel in Washington; even before 1948, Angleton had close ties to clandestine Jewish organizations. Israeli sentiments for this secretive American intelligence officer are on public display. Just north of Jerusalem, along the Jerusalem—Tel Aviv highway, a series of stones has been inscribed to serve as a memorial for Israeli war heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. One of these stones is reserved for the memory of James Angleton. Inscribed on the stone in English and Hebrew: “James Jesus Angleton. 1917–1987. In memory of a Good Friend.”5 A similarly dedicated stone is on a hill overlooking the Jaffa Gate, near the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, bearing the inscription, in English, Hebrew, and Arabic: “In memory of a dear friend James (Jim) Angleton.”6 The latter was unveiled in a special ceremony where many former and current members of Israel’s intelligence community were present to reminisce on the life of their greatest American ally.7

Angleton’s relationship with Israeli intelligence organizations dated back to the Second World War when, as an OSS (the Office of Strategic Services—America’s first clandestine service) officer, he had worked with underground Jewish networks in Italy. After the war, Angleton was the official liaison with all the Allied secret services and the exclusive conduit for information from Israel’s intelligence community.8

One of Angleton’s close friends described the importance of this position:

That’s the job that was so sensitive … and that’s the one that you don’t read about. While he was liaising with everyone, he was getting

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